This Date in History

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On April 11, 1960 Time Magazine’s cover featured Bowman Gray Jr., the Chairman of the Board of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.

The feature story included the following: “To pick its mixtures, Reynolds relies on a tasting panel of 250 employees (from top executives to stenographers) who regularly test its new products. But [Chairman of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, Bowman] Gray ”who began smoking when he was nine” is the man with the golden tongue, gives the final O.K. Says he: “I do believe that if a cigarette appeals to me — I’m a pretty average fella — it might appeal to the population.” This week Gray, who smokes as many as four packs of Winstons a day (with an occasional Salem), was also puffing away at cigarettes from chalky white, unmarked testing packs. Through his mouth and into his windpipe he rolled the smoke with all the sober concentration of a winetaster. In the blank packs were cigarettes being tested as possible additions to half a dozen new brands that Reynolds already has on hand to put on the market when the time is ripe.” ~ Time Magazine, April 11, 1960

From NCPedia.org: “Under Gray's leadership the Reynolds company expanded its sales, produced a number of new brands of tobacco products, and introduced filter-tipped cigarettes. During this time a Reynolds manufacture, Camel cigarettes, was reported to have been the nation's largest selling cigarette. His encouragement of research led to the establishment of a Product Development Center in 1959; the firm also contributed to cancer research. Diversification became a policy of the company under Gray's direction and transportation, food products, and packaging firms were acquired. In one of the most extensive such actions taken by a southern industry, R. J. Reynolds in 1961–62 totally integrated all of its employees. Also during Gray's administration, the company expanded employee benefits in the areas of health care, retirement, education, profit sharing, and other areas.” Gray, Bowman, Jr..

Gray also died on April 11, 1969. His death certificate lists “congestive heart failure” as the cause. He was 62.
 
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North Carolina FIRST IN FREEDOM — April 12, 1776 appears on the NC State Flag (words and numbers on flags have always struck me as somewhat wrong-headed but that is an aside). The "Halifax Resolves" noted below are the reason for that banner placement. Way back in 1975 our license plates began to sport the phrase "First in Freedom" in honor of that resolution and the nation’s impending Bi-Centennial. I have always been a license plate reader — often trying to create words or phrases from the letter sequences as a ‘mind game.’ I remember that when I lived in the Boone area many plates began with the three letters, “BRR.” In my game that became, naturally, Blowing Rock Road! I also remember that in 1975 in protest (since, of course, NC did not freely abolish slavery but clung to it with the other confederate states - the very height of UN -Freedom - but rather had to be forced to end that antithetical institution) some North Carolinians placed Duct Tape over that phrase on their plates. I don't rightly remember how that protest turned out but evidently the "First in Freedom" promoters won the day some forty years later when the option of either “First In Flight” or “First In Freedom” became available.



In reference to our #OnThisDay, the Halifax Resolves have long intrigued me because they seemed so “out of North Carolina character.” After all, we’ve not often been at the forefront of radical moves, instead historically taking a “watch what the other guy does” sort of approach. In regard to Independence, while the Halifax Resolves came early in the deliberations toward breaking with Great Britain, when push came to shove, we were the 12th of the 13 colonies to actually separate. There is even a kind of tentativeness to the Resolves in my opinion as ultimately that agreement only gave North Carolina’s representatives to the Continental Congress permission to agree, it did not order them to do such a thing — Read for yourself and you be the judge: “Resolved, that the delegates for this colony in the Continental Congress be empowered to concur with the delegates of the other Colonies in declaring independency, and forming foreign alliances, reserving to this Colony the sole and exclusive rights of forming a Constitution and laws for this Colony, and of appointing delegates from time to time (under the direction of the general representation thereof), to meet the delegates of the other Colonies for such purposes as shall be hereafter pointed out.” (Go to page 512 of the document itself: https://docsouth.unc.edu/csr/index.html/document/csr10-0250 ).



#OTD (April 12) 1776 The Fourth Provincial Congress of North Carolina unanimously approved a resolution to move for Independence from England. This was the first such intention put to paper. Named for the site of the meeting, this declaration is known as The Halifax Resolves. Halifax Day Celebrates Embrace of Independence

(Apologies - was driving all day yesterday and missed it - day late)
 
Saw Little Feat in Carmichael Auditorium -- they probably sounded better than anyone I ever heard there (the bar was low on the sound there). Here's a link to that show (Little Feat Live at Carmichael Auditorium on 1978-09-17):


I had seen them a few months earlier (April 1, 1978) at Elon College -- a great show there too.


"Lowell George (Little Feat) was born on this date in 1945. He died on June 29, 1979, aged 34.
Lowell George, born April 13, 1945, in Hollywood, California, was a singer, songwriter, and guitarist best known as the frontman of Little Feat. Raised in a show-business family, with a mother who played piano and a father tied to film, he started playing guitar at 11 and joined folk and rock bands in his teens. He briefly played with The Standells and Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention in 1968 before forming Little Feat in 1969 with Bill Payne, Roy Estrada, and Richie Hayward. Their debut Little Feat (1971) and albums like Sailin’ Shoes (1972) and Dixie Chicken (1973) featured his slide guitar and songs like "Willin’."
George produced albums for The Grateful Dead and Valerie Carter, and wrote for Linda Ronstadt, who covered "Willin’" in 1974. Little Feat released six albums under his lead, including Feats Don’t Fail Me Now (1974), before he left in 1979 for a solo career, releasing Thanks, I’ll Eat It Here that year. He died of a heart attack on June 29, 1979, at 34." From "All Things Music Plus,"

 
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On April 11, 1960 Time Magazine’s cover featured Bowman Gray Jr., the Chairman of the Board of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.

The feature story included the following: “To pick its mixtures, Reynolds relies on a tasting panel of 250 employees (from top executives to stenographers) who regularly test its new products. But [Chairman of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, Bowman] Gray ”who began smoking when he was nine” is the man with the golden tongue, gives the final O.K. Says he: “I do believe that if a cigarette appeals to me — I’m a pretty average fella — it might appeal to the population.” This week Gray, who smokes as many as four packs of Winstons a day (with an occasional Salem), was also puffing away at cigarettes from chalky white, unmarked testing packs. Through his mouth and into his windpipe he rolled the smoke with all the sober concentration of a winetaster. In the blank packs were cigarettes being tested as possible additions to half a dozen new brands that Reynolds already has on hand to put on the market when the time is ripe.” ~ Time Magazine, April 11, 1960

From NCPedia.org: “Under Gray's leadership the Reynolds company expanded its sales, produced a number of new brands of tobacco products, and introduced filter-tipped cigarettes. During this time a Reynolds manufacture, Camel cigarettes, was reported to have been the nation's largest selling cigarette. His encouragement of research led to the establishment of a Product Development Center in 1959; the firm also contributed to cancer research. Diversification became a policy of the company under Gray's direction and transportation, food products, and packaging firms were acquired. In one of the most extensive such actions taken by a southern industry, R. J. Reynolds in 1961–62 totally integrated all of its employees. Also during Gray's administration, the company expanded employee benefits in the areas of health care, retirement, education, profit sharing, and other areas.” Gray, Bowman, Jr..

Gray also died on April 11, 1969. His death certificate lists “congestive heart failure” as the cause. He was 62.
Hey!

He only smoked for 53 years and just 4 packs a day!
 
IMG_8361.jpeg

North Carolina FIRST IN FREEDOM — April 12, 1776 appears on the NC State Flag (words and numbers on flags have always struck me as somewhat wrong-headed but that is an aside). The "Halifax Resolves" noted below are the reason for that banner placement. Way back in 1975 our license plates began to sport the phrase "First in Freedom" in honor of that resolution and the nation’s impending Bi-Centennial. I have always been a license plate reader — often trying to create words or phrases from the letter sequences as a ‘mind game.’ I remember that when I lived in the Boone area many plates began with the three letters, “BRR.” In my game that became, naturally, Blowing Rock Road! I also remember that in 1975 in protest (since, of course, NC did not freely abolish slavery but clung to it with the other confederate states - the very height of UN -Freedom - but rather had to be forced to end that antithetical institution) some North Carolinians placed Duct Tape over that phrase on their plates. I don't rightly remember how that protest turned out but evidently the "First in Freedom" promoters won the day some forty years later when the option of either “First In Flight” or “First In Freedom” became available.



In reference to our #OnThisDay, the Halifax Resolves have long intrigued me because they seemed so “out of North Carolina character.” After all, we’ve not often been at the forefront of radical moves, instead historically taking a “watch what the other guy does” sort of approach. In regard to Independence, while the Halifax Resolves came early in the deliberations toward breaking with Great Britain, when push came to shove, we were the 12th of the 13 colonies to actually separate. There is even a kind of tentativeness to the Resolves in my opinion as ultimately that agreement only gave North Carolina’s representatives to the Continental Congress permission to agree, it did not order them to do such a thing — Read for yourself and you be the judge: “Resolved, that the delegates for this colony in the Continental Congress be empowered to concur with the delegates of the other Colonies in declaring independency, and forming foreign alliances, reserving to this Colony the sole and exclusive rights of forming a Constitution and laws for this Colony, and of appointing delegates from time to time (under the direction of the general representation thereof), to meet the delegates of the other Colonies for such purposes as shall be hereafter pointed out.” (Go to page 512 of the document itself: https://docsouth.unc.edu/csr/index.html/document/csr10-0250 ).



#OTD (April 12) 1776 The Fourth Provincial Congress of North Carolina unanimously approved a resolution to move for Independence from England. This was the first such intention put to paper. Named for the site of the meeting, this declaration is known as The Halifax Resolves. Halifax Day Celebrates Embrace of Independence

(Apologies - was driving all day yesterday and missed it - day late)
Every time I read the Halifax Resolves; it just makes me mad the NC Flag promotes the myth of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. The Mecklenburg Resolves are dated May 31, 1775 and actually existed on that date. Couple of thoughts:
1) The Mecklenburg Resolves represented an enormous and important step at the time they were written and we as Americans, Tar Heels, and residents of Mecklenburg County should be proud of them.
2) There is no contemporaneous evidence (printed in a newspaper or anything else) of the existence of the Mecklenburg DofI.
3) It is an absolute fact that the text of the Mecklenburg DofI was created years later by young men prompting their octogenarian elders to "remember" something that didn't exist, based on confused memories of the Mecklenburg Resolves and the real Declaration of Independance.
4) There is contemporaneous evidence (printed in the newspaper) of the Mecklenburg Resolves.
5) The spurious Mecklenburg DofI has absolutely no contemporaneous evidence of its existence and is quite obviously a mishmash of recollections of old men that combined the Mecklenburg Resolves and the Declaration of Independence.
6) The date of the spurious Mecklenburg DofI is May 20, 1775, 11 days earlier than the real Mecklenburg Resolves.
7) This 11 day difference matches exactly to the 11 days the calendar lost beginning in 1752 and presumably still in progress in some back-water areas due to the switch from the Julian to the Gregorian Calendar.
8) Promoting the spurious Mecklenburg DofI, has the inevitable effect of diminishing the real and dramatic importance of the Mecklenburg Resolves.
9) If you make up history just to get a better story, then you call into question all history and bring it all into disrepute.

I apologize for the (repeated) tirade about the Mecklenburg DofI and none of it is directed at the OP. I just get mad anytime someone mentions something even tangently related to the Mecklenburg DofI. I once had an arbitration in front of a lawyer who was president of the group in Charlotte that champions the spurious Mecklenburg DofI. It was all I could do to keep my mouth shut and remain courteous. My client prevailed in the mediation.
 
I'm with you...absolutely hate that date is on our flag...in fact I'd rather not have a flag with writing or numerals on it at all...it is backwards half the time. But I also don't believe the Mecklenberg Declaration happened.

Now that the North Carolina Constitution (Which one? 1776, 1868, or 1972 -- all three?) has been added to the REACH ACT/Foundations of American Democracy mandated curriculum I think I'll include this charade as well.
 
I've not read anything that brings Auschwitz home better than Primo Levi's Survival at Auschwitz. Levi was an absolute genius in so many ways.

Here is an excerpt...

 
April 16, 1865

"The Confederate Army abandoned Chapel Hill about 2 PM on 16 April 1865. Cornelia Phillips Spencer’s The Last Ninety Days of the War in North Carolina relates: “A few hours of absolute and Sabbath stillness and silence ensued. The groves stood thick and solemn, the bright sun shining through the great boles and down the grassy slopes, while a pleasant fragrance was wafted from the purple panicles of the Paulownias.”

Toward the end of the day, the Union Army arrived and a delegation led by UNC President David L Swain went out to meet the first Union officer – to discuss the protection of the village and campus. Swain brought to this meeting one of the 17 people he enslaved, a twenty-five year old man named Wilson. But President Swain did not bring home a slave. For at this meeting, the Union officer read them the following words:

“…all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free…”

The last slave would not be liberated by the Emancipation Procalamation until 19 June 1865. But emancipation arrived in Chapel Hill nine weeks earlier – on Easter Sunday – the 16th of April 1865.

One hundred and sixty years ago today, Wilson Swain Caldwell became a free man. He would go on to become the first African-American public official in Chapel Hill, the first black landowner in what we now call the Northside neighborhood, the father of NC’s first African American Medical Doctor, and the grandfather, great grandfather and great-great grandfather to hundreds of people who live here today." (H/T to friend Mark Chilton)

Wilson Caldwell (1841-1898) · Slavery and the University · Carolina Story: Virtual Museum of University History
 
A lot of bad and weird things happen the last half of April for some reason.

Also, NC had its largest tornado outbreak ever on this date in 2011.
 
April 16, 1865

"The Confederate Army abandoned Chapel Hill about 2 PM on 16 April 1865. Cornelia Phillips Spencer’s The Last Ninety Days of the War in North Carolina relates: “A few hours of absolute and Sabbath stillness and silence ensued. The groves stood thick and solemn, the bright sun shining through the great boles and down the grassy slopes, while a pleasant fragrance was wafted from the purple panicles of the Paulownias.”

Toward the end of the day, the Union Army arrived and a delegation led by UNC President David L Swain went out to meet the first Union officer – to discuss the protection of the village and campus. Swain brought to this meeting one of the 17 people he enslaved, a twenty-five year old man named Wilson. But President Swain did not bring home a slave. For at this meeting, the Union officer read them the following words:

“…all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free…”

The last slave would not be liberated by the Emancipation Procalamation until 19 June 1865. But emancipation arrived in Chapel Hill nine weeks earlier – on Easter Sunday – the 16th of April 1865.

One hundred and sixty years ago today, Wilson Swain Caldwell became a free man. He would go on to become the first African-American public official in Chapel Hill, the first black landowner in what we now call the Northside neighborhood, the father of NC’s first African American Medical Doctor, and the grandfather, great grandfather and great-great grandfather to hundreds of people who live here today." (H/T to friend Mark Chilton)

Wilson Caldwell (1841-1898) · Slavery and the University · Carolina Story: Virtual Museum of University History
Lots of prominent Caldwells in Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and Orange County when I grew up……Hilliard Caldwell ….Edwin Caldwell, Jr.
 
Albert Hofmann, born in Switzerland, joined the pharmaceutical-chemical department of Sandoz Laboratories, located in Basel, as a co-worker with professor Arthur Stoll, founder and director of the pharmaceutical department. He began studying the medicinal plant squill and the fungus ergot as part of a program to purify and synthesize active constituents for use as pharmaceuticals. His main contribution was to elucidate the chemical structure of the common nucleus of Scilla glycosides (an active principle of Mediterranean squill). While researching lysergic acid derivatives, Hofmann first synthesized LSD on November 16, 1938. The main intention of the synthesis was to obtain a respiratory and circulatory stimulant (an analeptic). It was set aside for five years, until April 16, 1943, when Hofmann decided to take a second look at it. While re-synthesizing LSD, he accidentally absorbed a small amount of the drug and discovered its powerful effects. He described what he felt as being:

... affected by a remarkable restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness. At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight to be unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After about two hours this condition faded away.
 
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I was not born yet when Kerr (say it=Car) Scott died but I heard about him (Born #OTD, April 16, 1958). My Deddy respected his progressive ‘get-it-done’ Rooseveltian ways. He clearly believed that government could have a positive influence on the people of the state. Historically he is above most NC political servants in the 20th century-yes Helms was nationally, even internationally known, but he was a negative force on the planet — A Pox -- Scott was positive in a great many aspects.

Kerr Scott was the closest North Carolina has ever come to a Big Personality Southern Governor a la Earl Long (LA) or ‘Big Jim’ Folsom (AL). He was physically big, loud, even boisterous, wore outlandish ties, and brandished a cigar while extolling the virtues of possum stew to city big shots. “The Squire of Haw River” was a private in WWI, graduated State College, and was deeply committed to the farm families of the state. He never stopped dairy-farming in Alamance County nor focusing on the needs of North Carolina’s country folk. He served as an Agricultural Extension Agent, the state Secretary of Agriculture, Governor, and US Senator.

My Deddy was also Rooseveltian and probably more Eleanor than Franklin Delano. He was appointed Postmaster in #Bonlee during the New Deal and he too believed that government could, and should, work in partnership with the people of North Carolina. In 1947 Kerr Scott upset the tobacco sled of Tar Heel politics by wrestling the governorship from the grip of the textile barons and elites, known as the Shelby Dynasty, by appealing to North Carolina’s working class. He did this by directly targeting their needs and concerns. Primary to that successful campaign was paving roads.

I’ve long had a meandering ‘back way’ from my childhood home in #DeepChatham to my adopted and much beloved Chapel Hill. Most of that 35 mile ride is over State Roads named for local folks and church communities. Those byways are narrow but for my entire life at least they’ve been asphalt and all-weather passable. Before Kerr Scott you couldn’t have made that same trek during certain seasons because they were literally quagmires. Scott knew those same back roads - he’d traversed them both as a farmer going to market and as an Ag Agent. He appealed to the folks that lived ‘out there’ in a quirky but effective ways - he talked about raising the gas tax but that he’d do that to pay for paving roads that would permanently remove the “Mud Tax” that thwarted rural travel for work, worship, and education. And he pushed for rural school improvements and electrification. In the immediate post-WWII years most North Carolinians living outside of cities, which was 75% of the population, were without electricity.

An aside - paving those country roads made transit between those small communities increasingly possible during the winter months of harsh weather - and a good deal of those school improvements meant the addition of a gymnasium. I would argue that such a combination did almost as much to facilitate the boom in basketball in North Carolina as did NC State’s hiring of Everett Case to bring the game from Indiana or UNC’s luring of Frank McGuire, with his New York City players. After all, finally during those darkest nights of December through March, when farm chores were at their minimum those popcorn-scented cracker boxes provided arenas for hard-fought battles between the boys AND girls from places like #Bonlee, #Bennett, and #Goldston in emulation of equally ferocious contests among the Big Four of UNC, NC State, Duke, and Wake Forest.

Remembering historical context we cannot forget that Scott was a man of his times and his sentiments regarding race were deeply flawed and sadly he stood for segregation through the end of his days in 1958. As much as that stance was generational, Scott did win the support of the small percentage (14%) of African Americans voting in North Carolina in the ‘40s and ‘50s. Scott’s ‘Branchhead Boys,’ the nickname for his backers because they were said to live close by where streams and creeks originated, were essentially a class-based and mildly populist alliance that at least harkened back to the Fusion Movement that surrounded the Farmers Alliance during the 1890s.

I can’t help but think back to this time when working people in the state so clearly voted their best interests in transportation, economics, and education, rejecting a status quo that took them for granted and mainly worked counter to their needs. Would that the grandchildren of those voters awaken to the common sense of their ancestors and we could lift North Carolina out of the modern morass that regressive politicians have made.

He died young, too many ham biscuits & cigars. #OTD in 1958 Kerr Scott (born 1896) died. Agricultural Commissioner, Governor, & US Senator but also lifetime Alamance Dairyman, he was a New Dealer, pushing for rural electrification, paved roads & telephones. Raising the gas tax to remove the “Mud Tax”moved NC forward.
 
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